Morphological description of Montanina cattle, an old Sicilian (Italy) indigenous ecotype

Sicily is rich in animal biodiversity and boasts a great variety of indigenous cattle: Modicana and Cinisara, officially recognized, and Montanina, a local ecotype not officially recognized. The aim of this research was to study the phenotype in a nucleus of 32 Montanina adult cows from 3 local farms, located in Nebrodi areas, to identify the peculiar phenotypic traits to create the breed standard. The morphology characterization was made with estimation of weight and with 10 body measurements (expressed in cm), such as Withers Height (WH), Body length (BL), Chest Height (CH), Chest Width (CW), Chest Length (CL), Chest Girth (CG), Rump Length (RL), Rump width Ileum (RW_IL), Rump width Ischium (RW_IS), Hock Girth (HG). The descriptive statistics were calculated for morphological variables and the morphological tips was established through Body Index (BI: CW/CH) and Chest Index (CI: BL/CG). Phenotypically the cows have a red overcoat with an overall black hair coat and a reddish stripe on the back. The horns are white with black tip and have an average length of 27.48 cm (medium – long size). The average values of body weight is 494.55 kg and the average of body measures are 129.3 (WH), 158.4 (BL), 71.2 (CH), 46 (CW), 81.9 (CL), 182.4 (CG), 50.8 (RL), 54.2 (RW_IL), 39.2 (RW_IS) show a variability and this is confirmed by BI index in which some cows are mesomorphs (50%) while other are dolicomorphs (50%). Despite variability, the animals have good skeletal and muscular development. According to CI index, the cows are all mesomorphs indicating a good conformation well adapted to mountain environment. In conclusion, our results show that the Montanina cow has adapted to the difficult local environment and will also be able to adapt to future climate changes. The phenotype, like the coat colour and horns, the shape and the body size makes it unique and different from the other breed present in the territory, but further studies will be conducted to investigate the genetic structure of Montanina breed.